04014nam 2200781 a 450 991096604750332120251116233818.00-19-020853-80-19-998581-21-283-42737-00-19-979767-69786613427373(CKB)2560000000296274(EBL)829403(OCoLC)769344065(SSID)ssj0000571387(PQKBManifestationID)11390491(PQKBTitleCode)TC0000571387(PQKBWorkID)10611329(PQKB)11534094(StDuBDS)EDZ0000056401(MiAaPQ)EBC829403(MiAaPQ)EBC7038275(Au-PeEL)EBL7038275(OCoLC)774295797(EXLCZ)99256000000029627420110125d2011 uy 0engur|n|---|||||txtccrUncertain chances science, skepticism, and belief in nineteenth-century American literature /Maurice S. LeeNew York Oxford University Press20111 online resource (250 p.)Description based upon print version of record.0-19-979757-9 0-19-993241-7 Includes bibliographical references and index.Cover; Contents; Acknowledgments; Introduction; 1. Probably Poe; Method-If Method There Is; Vast Individual Error; Things External to the Game; 2. Moby-Dick and the Opposite of Providence; The Cause of the Hunt; The Indifferent Sword of Chance; At a Venture; 3. Doubting If Doubt Itself Be Doubting: After Moby-Dick; Judge ye, then, ye Judicious; Pierre and Pragmatism; "Bartleby" and Buridan's Ass; 4. Douglass's Long Run; Providence and Improvidence; Balancing Probabilities; Give Them a Chance!; Reconstructing Black Pragmatism; 5. Roughly Thoreau; Axes and Knives; Errors and AveragesFish and GamesAn Unfinished Life of Science; Summing Up; 6. Dickinson's Precarious Steps, Surprising Leaps, and Bounds; Romantic Embarrassments; Chances for Heaven; Precarious Gaits; Having an Experience; Coda: Lost Causes and the Civil War; Notes; Index; A; B; C; D; E; F; G; H; I; J; K; L; M; N; O; P; Q; R; S; T; U; V; W; YThe role of chance changed in the nineteenth century, and American literature changed with it. Long dismissed as a nominal concept, chance was increasingly treated as a natural force to be managed but never mastered. New theories of chance sparked religious and philosophical controversies while revolutionizing the sciences as probabilistic methods spread from mathematics, economics, and sociology to physics and evolutionary biology. Chance also became more visible in everyday life, as Americans attempted to control its power through weather forecasting, insurance policies, military strategy, aAmerican literature19th centuryHistory and criticismChance in literatureProbability in literatureSkepticism in literatureBelief and doubt in literaturePragmatism in literatureLiterature and scienceUnited StatesHistory19th centuryChristianity and literatureUnited StatesHistory19th centuryUnited StatesIntellectual life19th centuryAmerican literatureHistory and criticism.Chance in literature.Probability in literature.Skepticism in literature.Belief and doubt in literature.Pragmatism in literature.Literature and scienceHistoryChristianity and literatureHistory810.9/384Lee Maurice S145854MiAaPQMiAaPQMiAaPQBOOK9910966047503321Uncertain chances4465263UNINA